“There are pieces of me, small pieces, still in love with a fiction.”
-Victoria Aveyard, King’s Cage
In the third book of the Red Queen series, Mare Barrow has found herself a prisoner of Maven, giving herself up to save the rebellion. With Maven constantly suppressing her powers, Mare quickly begins to lose hope. But Cal will stop at nothing in order to bring her back.
Similar to the way I felt about Glass Sword, I was also lukewarm about King’s Cage. Quite honestly, the only reason I keep reading these is because I want to see how the story ends. The world is intriguing, but there are flaws and parts of it feel ripped off from other young adult novels (like The Hunger Games). I can see the appeal, in the drama and the intrigue, but it just doesn’t seem to hold my attention.
One thing that bothered me about this volume in particular was the sudden switch to multiple narrators. The other two books were just narrated by Mare, and while I understand Aveyard wanted the reader to see what was happening in the rebellion, I’m a firm believer in series staying in the same narration style. Let’s use Allegiant as an example. That book changes to multiple narrators in the last book, which gave away a huge plot point. I’m not sure if something similar is happening here, but I think we could have stayed with Mare and the story would have still worked just fine.
This book just felt like a lot of filler in order to get to the last book, and I think the story could have done without it. Maybe the last one will be better–we’ll just have to wait and see.
3/5 stars